Ben Helsing discusses treasury leadership during market uncertainty, covering bond market strategies, short-term funding solutions, and how to support shareholders and recruit talent when conditions are volatile.
Foreign the bond markets first and foremost we stay very active with the bond investors even if we are not issuing right now. So we had a lot of meetings with investors after our year end results in March, April and now again next couple of weeks we will arrange bond investor meetings to share the highlights of the half year results. So we stay active, keep P3 on the minds of bond investors. So when markets are back and we feel that they are strong enough for us to issue again with a decent levels with no execution risk, then we are still, you know, relevant in the minds of the bond investors so we can quickly access the markets again. And then in the meanwhile the short term funding need we are now covering with bank financing. So when the bond markets are not there, we are discussing with a lot of commercial banks and non commercial financing institutions also and erasing our short term funding need through these other sources for the time being. But I think those pockets are not as deep as the bond market so it's more a short and midterm solution. And for the long term funding need we want the bond markets to come back. We work super closely together with this team collaboration tool. So we are all day on teams sharing screens and chatting and calling and files. So we kind of still feels like a real theme regarding these uncertain times. I talk with them, I explain them what our plans are, how I think we will cope with the situation and all that. And I think we are in the fortunate situation where our owner is as strong as an owner can be essentially. So we have a triple A government owned owner in a way we are in a much more stable state and many of our competitors in the real estate sectors that might have super highly leveraged farms and owners so I think they are a bit more worried than I have to be because we have always this support from our shareholder if things would go really bad. But so far we are coping independently and I think that's how it will continue also. But if there would be some really mega disaster in the markets, I think we can still climb with the support of the shareholder. Generally what I'm looking for when I'm recruiting, I'm looking for humble team players with healthy self confidence. So if I get the feeling from the candidate they are just talkers with the big ego that a huge warning sign for me. I rather have somebody more down to earth that I get the feeling that they really know what they are talking about and can deliver. So I think that's what I'm looking for. And as I said, it's all also very important for me that I get the sense that the person is like, self going and self motivating because I don't want to be the kind of boss that has to hold their hand all day. So I want them to kind of give them a task and give them a goal and a timeline, and then they kind of run with this task and delivery.
